This week on the Becoming a Profitable CEO podcast, I welcome my spreadsheet loving friend and very first guest, Kelly Reynolds from Reynolds OBM. Tune in to find out the baby steps you can take to start knowing your numbers.

It's time for the Becoming a Profitable CEO podcast and it's all about providing you with the tools to succeed on this ever-evolving business-building journey. My mission is to make sure you know you are not alone, that it is possible and that you, yes YOU, CAN do this. You matter, the world is a better place for having you in it, and your voice is needed!

I’m Teresa Cleveland and I believe we can all make a difference and that having a successful online business is one of the best, most effective ways to do that.

Let’s get to it!

After business school and a decade spent on Wall Street, Kelly Reynolds thought there had to be more to life than a terrible commute. Now, as the owner of the Reynolds OBM Agency. She and her team help small businesses grow by getting their ops and finances in shape.

She is also the host of the Sink Handle Podcast where she loves to dole out business advice, with a dose of tough love while keeping the small business panic at bay. She lives in New Jersey (the good part with the beaches) with her husband, son and adorable dog Opie. She loves pretty spreadsheets and people who bring red wine, especially to business meetings and play dates.

Teresa: Kelly, it is so good to have you here.

Kelly: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Teresa: I just want to let everybody know a little story about why Kelly had to be my first guest.

She and I are friends. We can talk forever and have prior to this, we were supposed to have started like an hour and a half ago. I want everybody to know listening that if this goes really, really well, it's kudos to Kelly because she's the reason that I even started this podcast. And if it doesn't, then it's all her fault. You can call me, I'll give you her phone number and you can call and let her know.

Kelly: In fairness, I did not instigate the podcast. I invited Teresa on to my podcast. And when she was like a little nervous about it, I told her to do it anyway. And she did. And then she loved it.

Teresa: And now we're here because I was very adamant, if you want that story listen to my first episode, you'll find out all about that. I was sharing our episode with my group. As I was typing that Kelly and I were chatting about things that came up on this journey to becoming a profitable CEO. And it was like, oh, my gosh, everything became so clear that this is what it is. And I text you a Facebook message. And I'm like, guess what you did? This just happened and it's all your fault.

Kelly: One of my favorite things is to instigate people to do crazy things. I love it, love it, love it.

Teresa: Speaking of your podcast, Kelly, tell everybody the name of your podcast.

Kelly: The podcast is the Sink Handle podcast.

Teresa: And what do you talk about?

Kelly: We are all about not panicking small businesses. Being a small business is really hard. When the apocalypse hit in March, it got really scary. And we wanted to just talk about how it shouldn't be scary. And there's so many things you can do to help yourself.

Teresa: A lot of great information on there. Love your sense of humor and just how you show up. And this is the thing for me. I want to talk to people that are real and not that gurus aren't real. But it's really important to me that in the life of this podcast that we talk with people who are just out there getting it done, real people doing real things. I mean, we can all grow to become that guru or whatever.

I want us to be able to talk about all these things that happen along the way to becoming a profitable CEO. And I figure people can listen to the gurus, they can catch them on just about any podcast.

Let's get started on that. One of the things that I would love for you to share, because we're going to talk about two different perspectives here about becoming a profitable CEO. So on your journey to becoming a profitable CEO, will you share a mindset, shift moment, something along your journey that was just like, made you think about your business differently or that thing that challenged you and made a difference in your business? Because everybody out there, we all face those different things.

And I think it's important for people to know. Yes, coming up against this, that or the other, it's OK. That's normal. There's nothing wrong with you. And it's possible to get to the other side of that.

Kelly: Sure. I think one of the biggest shifts was, I was on Wall Street for twelve years. When I came off, I had another business and then I started as a virtual assistant and I felt like, oh, I'm coming into a new world and I don't have any experience in this world. So I have to start at the bottom. And if anyone knows anything about being a virtual assistant, everyone says you should start with social media, which I had no interest in at all.

And I thought I had to start at the bottom typing things and doing all the stuff. And the biggest shift was realizing I have all this experience from Wall Street. I was helping to run a brokerage team. I handled all the operations for a very large brokerage team with multi, multi-millions of dollars under management. So realizing that I could take whatever experience I had and bring it here. Like I didn't, I wasn't starting out. I had already been there. It was just a location.

And then once I realized, oh, yeah, I used to do all this stuff and that totally applies here. That's when I had the confidence to go and say, oh, no, I can help run this instead of oh, I can just, you know, schedule travel or whatever. But having that confidence change was huge for me.

Teresa: There are people out there who are great at scheduling travel and thank God for them.

Kelly: Oh yeah. And they should probably do it. And that is the thing I think is the confidence that when you come into that, when you really see it, that's that perspective. That is just like, oh, OK.

I was just looking at this from the wrong angle, leaning into your zone of genius and running with it and just looking around and seeing like, oh my gosh, there are people here who need this.

Teresa: Like who cares if there's a hundred other people doing this, right. Nobody is going to do it or say it the way that I do. And I just that. Your experience in that I remember you sharing with me that going through that whole Wall Street fiasco.

Kelly: Yeah

Teresa: Right? It wasn't just your numbers skills. It was like the leadership skills and the project management skills and all the things that it took to navigate that. You know, those are all very, very valuable that we don't really stop and think about that we have that in our toolbelt.

Kelly: Yeah, when I kind of got to this world, no one really talks finances. Like I'll talk about money. Like I love to yell at people for not getting their finances in shape. So like having that experience that brought it here, then I could start talking about that kind of stuff here.

I think a lot of people discount the world knowledge they had. You know, maybe you've been a mom and you've been running a house and you think, oh, I don't have any experience. You have tons of experience. You can create schedules and be project manager and all of those things. I think a lot of people think they don't have skills, that they have tons of skills, and it's just a confidence issue.

Teresa: You know, I talk about that with my clients, as I'm sure you do, make a list. What are the things that you're really good at? What do you love? How did that then manifest in your business? Once you've got that confidence, what happened next?

Kelly: I think when I was just starting out and when I was a virtual assistant, my husband had been laid off and money was crazy tight. I had to be profitable because I had to make sure that I wasn't spending more than I was making. I mean, that's all it is, right? You end up with some at the end of the day after you've paid your expenses. That's what profitable means. I needed to be. Like I couldn't spend time away from my family, away from my tiny baby at that point, working if I wasn't going to actually make any money.

And there is a point where you can invest and I know what other businesses you have to put in so much more upfront. But this business is very low overhead, especially in the beginning, and you can get up and running pretty easily. I needed to be aware of how much things were costing me and how much I was bringing in because I really did have to actually make some money. Like I couldn't play at this. This was our living and it set me on a great path to keeping that up, to making sure that the money was tracked. And I knew what was going on so I can make decisions.

Teresa: I see so many people and I did it myself. It's like, well, I'm going to do this and I'm just going to spend this money and eventually it's going to pay off.

Kelly: Yeah. And I mean, like, if you're going to set up a retail store and you have to buy stock, that's a thing, right? You have to you may need a business loan put in stock, but that's not what we do here. I don't need a brand new webcam, day one. I don't need a brand new whatever, day one. I need a computer. But most of us already have computers. There is an easy way for you sometimes to explain it as a business expense and you feel better about spending that money. But when you actually don't end up making any money, at the end of the day, it doesn't make any sense to just keep spending.

Teresa: Yes, I think there are just levels of business maturity, right? Sometimes it's like, oh my gosh, that's a write off. Oh, we can write this off. I remember somebody saying that to me about something and I'm like, well, you realize that you have to make it in order to be able to write it off. Not that I applied it, but I knew it.

Kelly: And it's still money going out. You pay less taxes on the money you have, but you're still buying the thing. You're still spending the money. It's not like government money that you're, because I'd like people just kind of want to write things off and they're like, oh, it'll be fine. But it's your money you're still spending.

Teresa: When it comes time to buy that house or buy that car or a credit card. If you've written everything off, they're like you make no money, right?
So how do you hold yourself accountable? Like we all have those days that it's like, oh, I really, really... do I have to? It's not like somebody is going to notice if you don't go into work today. Right? It's not like there's somebody taking attendance. Whether things are tough, whether it's the climate or whatever is going on, it affects us. We are a whole person and have a whole life. So how do you stay accountable during those times?

Kelly: I think the biggest thing is that I have real strict boundaries, although they have wiggled a bunch since home school, to adapt there. I have office hours from nine to four. I will tend to work on my own business maybe at night or on a new product or something. But other than that, my clients know that I'm available from nine to four Monday through Friday and I come, I get dressed and go to work and then when I'm done with work, I leave and I go out of the office.

I try very much to be in the office and on and then out and be relaxed. In the beginning, I felt like I could just walk around with my computer all day and then I just always was working, but not ever really working. Everything was just a blur. So having those boundaries was so crazy important.
And especially before the apocalypse, when my child actually left this house, I went to school having that like I only worked when he was at school. So I had to get things done and I couldn't just keep pushing it off and pushing it off because I had deadlines for clients. But I also know that if you don't look at your, let's say, my expenses in QuickBooks like if I don't look at them for six months, it will be a disaster. And I don't have time to sit down for three days and figure out a mess. I have it in my project management, Teamwork because I love that, every month I go in and I keep up my stuff.

And then if that little thing doesn't get checked off, it reminds me every day that I haven't done it. That's a lot of it. When you work by yourself at home, there is a lot of things that you have to be accountable to yourself. Right? Like you said, no one's going to check your attendance. But I also know that these things will help my business. And I want to make a ton of money. I want to be very successful.

So why wouldn't I get on my own case and get the stuff done, right? Like, why am I going to let everything slide? If I really want to be successful, I need to get in there, do it right.

Teresa: And I love that we all get to define what successful means to us. At the Purposeful CEO that's part of our mission statement. That you get to be as successful as you choose to be. Again, that accountability part to yourself, right? I always said nobody has to ask you how to be accountable when you're working for someone else. You don't show up for work. You don't get paid. It's really the same concept. Your bank account is kind of your accomtability.

Kelly: You still got bills to pay.

Teresa: They like to eat around here.

Kelly: Now, we talk a lot about mission and vision and values. And I think that that is really knowing what you want to get out of this very important. If you just want to make enough money for spending money or you just want to be able to pay for your kid's school and you have no intention of growing this company to a million dollars or whatever, that's totally fine. Knowing what you want out of this is how you're going to know if you're successful at it.

This is not a hobby business for me. This is my livelihood. This pays for things for my family. So I have different goals than someone else would.

Teresa:  Exactly. Even if it is you wanting to pay for your kid's school, that's still not a hobby. That's the thing that you have to know. I see a lot of people that get into business and think, oh, I'm kind of good at this, I'm going to do this and I'm still going to go out to eat whenever I want. I'm going to work whatever I want. That's the other thing, like you mentioned earlier, is there's an accountability to your clients, right?

Kelly: Yeah. I mean, I have, I have a lot of meetings these days. If I don't show up, they're not happy like that is a big accountability too.

Teresa: And you can't just show up and shoot the shit. I mean, you can sometimes, right?

Kelly: But you got to do something.

Teresa: Right. You've got to show up with something right. They're paying you to do something.

Kelly: You probably should shower because you could be on video. So that's helping you stay accountable for your hygeine.

Teresa: How far into your business were you? Like were you at a certain financial level that it was like, OK, this is now, things are kind of chaotic or was it a certain period of time? Where did that really kick in for you? That mindset shift?

Kelly: I think it was a few months in to doing some, you know, everyday work, virtual assistant work, just grinding out whatever and thinking, oh, I want to do more than this. Like, this work is not enjoyable, right? It's not I don't want be doing this. I have great ideas to do all these other things. And that's when you start like you get into it. And at first I was just so excited to find something that wasn't working locally in a shop or something away from my kid. Especially going from Wall Street to I was waitressing just to bring in money.

I was waitressing at night so that I could build my business during the day. I didn't really love it and I didn't use my brain coming here. I was so excited to use my brain to be a smart person again. And then when you get there, like, OK, well, this work is eh, it's getting a little boring. I'm over the high of actually making money from this and now I want to do more. And that drive, I always want to learn something.

I teach myself things all the time. I wanted more and more and more. So I would say after a few months I wanted to learn more. And then the more I researched, the more I realized I already, already knew a lot. I didn't need a ton of courses. I just really needed to kind of embrace what I had already known from Wall Street.

Teresa: Exactly. So that is using those vehicles like waitressing, like this stepping stone with the VA to say, OK, now that I've done this, what else can I do? It's that way with so many things. How do you know? How do I know? I don't like black licorice. I tried it and it's disgusting.

Kelly: Agree. Sometimes to come back, there was an embarrassment of waitressing after I had such a fancy job for a while. And now here I am, 30s and waitressing and there was a thing there. But I kept in mind the whole time like, oh no, this is letting me see my kid all day while I built something else. Yeah. You can't let that kind of mess with your mind that this is beneath me because it got me to where I am.

Teresa: Yes, I love that because our ego can get in the way.

Kelly: Yeah, totally. When your friends come in and you're asking them what they want, like for you, it's embarrassing.

Teresa: And they say, oh, here, have a seat. No, I'm working.

Kelly: I'm working and I get to take your dirty dishes away. And it's a great job. I'm not saying it, but your ego gets in there and you're like, Oh, God. Plus it's hard. My feet hurt all the time.

Teresa: Let's shift over. I thank you for sharing all of that, because I think on this podcast there's some vulnerable moments. We all experience them on different levels and in different ways. And I think it's important for everyone listening to know, like, oh, I'm not alone here. They say that in marketing, that's, those are the four most powerful words. Right? You are not alone. Well, I think just in life it's powerful because we can sit there and think, what's wrong with me?

What why am I struggling with this? And we just don't know the right questions to ask or we don't know the right places to look. With this podcast. I want for people to share those moments so that other people are like, oh, OK, I can. This is surmountable, right?

Kelly: Because, you know, like you're especially when you're starting something new in your house by yourself, it really messes with your mind. Right.

Teresa: Oh, the voices.

Kelly: So knowing that, like, oh, I have no idea what I'm doing and then taking a minute and be like I do, I do know what I'm doing. I'm actually good at this. And then saying, well, I've never had to do any of this kind of work, but then saying, well I might for a little while and then maybe I can have someone else do it later.

The biggest thing with being in business is just being flexible. No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow. People, like this year showed us nothing, no one knows what's going to happen tomorrow, and you just kind of have to roll with it.

Teresa: Yes, in those moments, if I really want to push myself, because it's so easy for us to have that moment, that is that push back, that is like, well, what should I do next? Oh, I don't know. And then go down the YouTube rabbit hole or the Facebook rabbit hole.

And I like to ask myself, OK, but if you did know, what would the answer be? What's your next best step? You don't have to know everything. If you truly don't know, then yes, just Google it or reach out to someone else who is doing it.

Kelly: If it's like a thing. But if it's on an eternal quest for random knowledge, you will never get anything done.

Teresa: That's the truth.

Kelly: Right? Like you can go and try out 17 different project management software and you can research them and make lists. You will not get anything done.

Teresa: Well, that's that paralyzation, right? You just, you're paralyzed. The fear paralyzes you, right? But you feel busy, so you-

Kelly: Right. I'm working on something.

Teresa: So let's shift now over to now that you figured it out and what you're doing and how you're helping people. We're going to talk about systems, numbers- all the scary things. It's about to get really scary up in here.

Kelly: I like scary things.

Teresa: This is probably one of the things that I hear a lot. I've said a lot. And once you know, the answer then is just like, oh, my gosh, that was such a stumbling block. It was just one of those things that, the fear. It was the fear. Right. OK, Kelly, I'm supposed to know my numbers, but how do I know them?

Kelly: Right. Because it's so easy for me to say you should know your numbers. Right.

Teresa: But it's like, oh, that's easy for you to say you lost or you have this experience with. But how the heck am I supposed to even know my numbers?

Kelly: So I think you should start basically. How much comes in, how much is going out, what do you got left? Basics. Figure out what you have to do every month. Do you have a G suite subscription at six bucks a month or whatever? Figure out all the things that you have that are standing repeatable expenses and then figure out what you want to spend and then what you're bringing in and make sure there's money at the end. That's the most basic, basic thing we can get into crazy accounting, which I'm not an accountant.

We can get into crazy numbers, what they mean and what you should do and making decisions. But I think most people are so scared of their numbers that they don't look. They don't look. They think there's money in their bank account and they're going to get three thousand dollars for this invoice and then they buy six thousand dollars worth of stuff because they've already rationalized that they're getting three thousand dollars in and they keep spending that money over over again. Just saying I'm going to bring in this much and then spend this much.

This is what I get at the end and leave some money for taxes, usually like twenty five percent of whatever you bring in should be put away for taxes. It's a huge, huge thing no one wants to do, but they come for you. Like that is the one thing that you've got to pay or that you get in trouble. Basic stuff like that is really important.

Teresa: So twenty five percent. Do you think that's good? Because I remember back in the beginning and thinking, well, I guess I would set that aside, but I don't even know how much to set aside so I didn't.

Kelly: That it's like the general number they'll give you.

It depends on your tax, like it depends on a whole bunch of things. If you have an accountant that does your taxes ask, that's like the twenty five is like that's the safe number. Somebody some people are going to be less because their husband works and pays a lot of taxes or you know, I mean there's all these kind of things.

Teresa: But it's a good rule of thumb.

Kelly: Yeah. Start there, start to save any, if you put any way you're ahead. Right. You're going to do that.

Teresa: I'm thinking like, OK. Twenty five percent. So if I end up having to pay a little bit more, at least I don't have to come up with all of it because I've set twenty five percent aside and yay maybe I'll have some left right. Maybe I have to pay less so-

Kelly: Anything you can get going like the tax bill will come and then you're going to go holy crap, I have to sell my car now you know, like to pay this then it's not a surprise, they're coming. So simple things like that, just paying attention to what you thinknd, if you have an accountant, ask them, ask them questions. They work for you, you hired them, ask them questions.

Teresa: And just a disclaimer here, Kelly is not an I am not saying, I'm telling you to save twenty five percent. It's going to be twenty five percent. Just pay twenty five percent. That's not it. We're saying that's a good ballpark. And again, check with your professional if you have one. And if not, I would find one. I guess the next thing is what's the best way to track it. You say know your numbers, but is that again, the paper and pencil? I mean, I guess if nothing else, that's somewhere to start.

Kelly: I would recommend QuickBooks or Wave or Xero, something like that. Those are softwares where you can automatically have everything from your bank comes in and you can track everything. You can send invoices, you can take payments I prefer QuickBooks because they take payments for free without a fee for ACHs, so large invoices don't have credit card fees. That's for your bookkeeping.

But I also think that for cash projections or goal setting or any of that, Teresa knows, I have a bundle of know your numbers tools, so a few spreadsheets that help you track your goals and your cash and make decisions in your business.

You can put in whatever expenses you have and what money you think you're going to have come in and you can make decisions based on how much you're gonna have left over. What do you think you are going to have to save for taxes? All that kind of stuff. So having those tools plus your bookkeeping software, you will be so far ahead and when tax time comes or quarterly taxes come, once you start making money, you have to start paying quarterly taxes. You hit three buttons and you know what's going on.

Everything's right there. It's not a horrible two days of like digging through receipts. It's so easy, especially in the beginning, because we don't have a ton of things. Like unless you have, like a small product business where you're really going through so many invoices or something like that, it's not a lot going on. You could take 15 minutes a month and look at it. And if it's really not your thing, bookkeepers are available. Virtual assistant bookkeepers. They can come in once a month, clean all your stuff up.

You know exactly where you are. You know, how much you made. You know how you hit your goals. You set a goal. You know exactly how close you are to that goal. Those are that's, So my tools and QuickBooks are my suggestions.

Teresa: Is there a point, because I know a lot of people starting out, first of all, they're just overwhelmed with the choices of software. They may not be making a lot of money. So if they're using something free like Wave, is there a certain point where it's like, OK, it's now time to consider QuickBooks?

Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing for me was Wave was free, but they charged for invoicing. I got payments. If I sent out a payment and someone paid, I had to pay for that. And then it became the tipping point between I was paying more in fees than I would have if I went to QuickBooks and didn't pay the fees. So I think that if you're just starting out, you're just trying to get a handle on things, Wave is really great. It's very user friendly. Get reports that are simple. You can do all that stuff. And I think you can really keep that for a while. I used QuickBooks because of the fees, because credit card fees are a lot of money and my clients understand that. So they're happy to pay with an ACH and nobody pays fees. So that's a huge thing for me.

And then once you get to a place where you have something more complicated, maybe you need different reports or you need to be able to have different services, different classifications, that kind of stuff, that's when QuickBooks would be a little bit more helpful.

Teresa: I started using it fairly early because I could push a button and I didn't do mine monthly and I didn't do mine regularly, but I connected it to my bank account, my PayPal account, my business account. And I did that. I wasn't looking for receipts. Because it used to be I did it in a spreadsheet and then I just had envelopes every month. And this is this worked for me for a while. Right? I had envelopes, a manila envelope that was taped to the side of my desk.

Every time I would spend something, I was out, ran to Staple's, whatever. I dropped that in the envelope. And then when I bought something online, I would just print it out and stick it in that envelope. And then at the end of the month, I would close that envelope and set it aside and put another one up for the next month.

Kelly: It was a long journey from that folder into QuickBooks, wasn't it?

Teresa: Oh my goodness.

Kelly: It was like the void.

Teresa: And then at the end of the year, the beginning of the year, I would break out into a cold sweat. Because I knew now I have to get all these envelopes out. I have to enter them into the spreadsheet and this whole thing that just and with me being a QuickStart and all of that sitting still and doing things like that is maddening in and of itself. It would take me weeks to then

Kelly: and who the hell wants to do that?

Teresa: Just like the mental stuff. Like always told me that no, I think I'll take a nap. Quickbooks was like connecting it was such a step up because everything was there. I could run the report, send it over once a year, which was not great either. But it was a step it was a step up.

So it's that journey that is like, OK, you got to find a better way. And that's always what I want to do. In any way that I talk with people or share information with people is don't take as long I did, there's a better way, a shorter way. I'm going to bring you some experts who can help you figure this out because there's no need to drive yourself and say

Kelly: Well, and making it easier when you set up the bank, you go in and you see the five charges that came in. You say, yes, put those into supplies or whatever, and you're done. You have to manually enter anything. It doesn't become overwhelming. When everything becomes overwhelming, we let it slide. Right? You go take a nap. Whatever you just said. You don't want to do the thing because it sucks. And now it's gotten so big and you don't want to deal with it and then you don't have any idea what's happening in your business.

Like if even if you went through every month and just took a simple two-second look at it and how much money you brought in and how much you went out, I have it set quarterly on my calendar that I go in and review like, do I really need the software? Do I really need to pay thirty dollars a month for this thing I haven't used in three months? Do I need to do all this stuff and then I can check in and save myself some money because I could take my lunch myself to lunch for thirty bucks.

Teresa: I think that's what I love, is that with all of this you can make these decisions right once you push past that fear? Because I will say what I was doing that and I did that for a couple of years. Yes, I did that for a couple of years. And every time once I got through the whole thing in that last envelope was done. And I would think, oh, my God, I've got to change this this year.

But there were so many other things calling my attention that I didn't do it. And then the next year, there I am again. And it's like, uggh, it's miserable.

Kelly: It's like all the hung over people saying, I'm never going to drink again.

Teresa: Same thing! And then I didn't know what was going on in my business. I knew that I would, and that was part of the anxiety, too, of doing, because I think I think I have whittled it down to, when it comes to numbers period, whether it's launch metrics, conversions, whatever it is, there are two reasons that people are afraid of them.

One is they just don't know how to do it, right? They don't know. And the fear, I think fear is the bigger one. Fear is like the driver. But it's like, well, I don't know how to do it and I don't want to do it wrong. Right? Because people don't want to do the two biggest things. I don't want to die. Right? And I don't want to go to jail. If I do this wrong, I'm going to go to jail is kind of like that thing.

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa: And then the other part is this fear that, oh my God, what if I find out I'm only making two dollars an hour?

Kelly: And that is most people don't want to know these things. Right. Like they don't want to know. But if you did know that the what you're doing is making you two dollars, wouldn't you change it?

Teresa: Exactly.

Kelly: Wouldn't you say I worked 12 hour days all week this week and I made no money. Why wouldn't you just go to the beach for the week if you've made no money? Right? So you should make sure your time is worth it. And that's the way to do it, is by looking and seeing if you're making any money.

Teresa: It allows you to make and I know this is this term. I love this term now, but it used to just like, I'd break out in the cold sweat, but data driven decisions. Like that's not sexy, but what it does for you is so good.

Kelly: Yeah.

Teresa: So good. It can become addictive sometimes.

Kelly: And it's like you have to kind of say instead of like looking at numbers as crazy, they're crazy, scary. They're just facts. They don't hate you. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. Nothing. They're just facts. It's just data. They're just numbers on a page. So if you can say, oh, I can either wake up at four a.m. every day and work or it doesn't really help me at all. I get to sleep in every day.

Wouldn't that make your life better? You have to focus on what the numbers mean about where you're going and not what they mean about you. They don't mean anything about you.

Teresa: And that is that's one of our blog posts that are coming up. It's facts versus feelings. Yeah, right. Because those feelings that you just all that fear and that. Oh, my God, you're right. And I when I know this, then I'm going to have to quit my business because it's not profitable.

Kelly: I'm going to have to get a real job.

Teresa: Exactly.

Kelly: Because I'm not making any money instead of taking the time to look at why you're not making any money. Do you really need that billion dollar software or do you need help in your business because you're doing everything yourself and it doesn't make any sense anymore? Those are the kind of decisions you can make. Like, do you have enough money? Do you, do you charge enough to be able to hire help like all of the decisions you need to make in your business come from knowing where the money is.

Teresa: It's crazy to me that this is so much a part of what I do now. And I know we have very different audiences when it comes to doing the work that we do. Tell me about your ideal client and why they need you.

Kelly: My ideal client is it's someone that usually comes from corporate. They've done something really well. They do the one thing. And at corporate, you could do one thing all day and then they say, I can do this for myself or, you know, the apocalypse happens and they have to do for themselves. And then they have no idea how to do the rest of it. Their operations is not existent. So I am the one who can come in and help build out the operations. I get, make sure that their finances are in shape.

I'm a huge, huge, huge advocate of systems in your business. They will make your life either hell or awesome just by knowing where things are, what's going on, and then having someone else be able to help you with those things. So I come in and help people with their operations. I get them set up and lean and then they can go do that one thing that they're really good at that they want to do, the reason they got into business. They can go and do that. And then I can make sure all the other stuff runs.

Teresa: That is so valuable because, you know, just going back to the numbers, it's do I like this number or not? Right? And if I don't like it, how do I change it? And if I do like it, like, wow, that's pretty awesome. How do I continue to do that or grow that, right?

Kelly: And then write it down. Most of us are totally scrambling in our businesses because we don't know where anything is or we don't know how to do anything yet. And then we figure it out and we don't write it down. And the word like SOP or the standard operating procedures scares the crap out of most people. And it's so simple. All it is, is the instructions for the thing. So when you you do the thing and you write it down and then if you write it down, you can give it to somebody else and then you have help.

So it's all these systems. It's just getting like the finance system. If you go in there and check off your stuff once a month, you're done. And it's already like having that kind of build out of things to help you so, you know where things are. So many people don't know where their stuff is in their drive folders like the there's a thing somewhere and then we have to search for forty five minutes to find it.

Teresa: And this is the crazy thing we all have systems, they're already there. Even if your system is I don't know where it is, that's a system.

Kelly: It may not be a good one, but it is a system.

Teresa: Right. Oh, well that's not working well so I need to change this system. I was doing a guest appearance in Bob Burg's group not too long ago. And someone shared, he chuckled while we were talking about systems because he said there's this, it was something about when you load a video to Facebook and he said some point in the process, there's this piece that he always forgets. And he said, and I always go to Google and I Google it and I know what video it is and, you know, and this whole thing. And I oh, my gosh. I was like, has he been in my office? Because I have a couple of things like that. Like, I had not thought that level, but if he had just, you know, whether he's doing a Loom or whatever himself and popping it into an S.O.P, then pulling it up, then he's not spending that extra time with that. So and time is money.

Kelly: It takes time and we don't have time. Right? Being able to like set up that process like I have an S.O.P on how to do my web page. I have a new web page for every podcast episode and there some code in there that actually Teresa helped me find. So like all this stuff and I don't know the code, I can pop it in, it's all right there.

If I can figure that out every time, forget it. And I can take that, give it to somebody else. And that is, everyone says you can't buy time, but you can buy other people's time. And give that to them. But you need to have it written down. It can't be in your head.

Teresa: Yes, because there are especially those things that there are those repeatable things. And so people will think like, oh, well, when I do the blog post, when I do the Facebook thing, whatever. But then there there are things that we only do every now and then. Those especially because remember what you were doing, let's get those in there, too. So I just it just makes so much sense. And then people are like, where do I find the time? Where do I find the time to do this? Right. That's a whole other conversation.

Kelly:  It is and all I'll say about that is you can screen record using a variety of loom or whatever. You can screen record what you're doing while you're doing it because you're going to do it anyway. It doesn't really take any more than 30 seconds to hit record and then put it in a folder somewhere and have someone else write it, write an SOP from it or whatever. But just even having a library of all the videos of you doing something will make it easier for you to go back and figure out how to do it next time, even if it's just yourself.

Teresa: I am a Loom fanatic. I know love, love, Loom. I use it with my team and it makes things so nice when you're onboarding a new team member.

Kelly, back to your ideal client. Like, what are they saying? Like what, how would I know if I wanted to refer somebody to you? What are they saying? That I would be like, oh, you need to talk to Kelly.

Kelly: Usually they already have their business going. They know what they have. They have that product, that service. They have that going. They are making money already. They know that part and they realize that all the other stuff is not working. They don't have the bookkeeping, maybe not going. But like all the other stuff of like I don't know how to keep track of. I don't know where anything is. I'd like to have systems built out so I can hire better like that kind of stuff.

Those are the keys. Usually like there's no operations. They just know their thing and everything else is falling by the wayside. And now they're to a point where they can't grow because they don't have these things in place.

Teresa: So I know my ideal audience is those making, like I say, three to five thousand. But, you know, it could be either or, you know, could be two to ten thousand dollars. And they need those things in place. Do you have like a financial level that your people are at that level when they can afford you so that they they get the best use of your skills at your level.

Kelly: Definitely six figures somewhere north of that that first six figure mark. Yeah. You have to be able to afford me. I'm going to tell you to overspend.

Teresa: Exactly. Is there a certain industry? Like I love working with fitness instructors, course creators. Do you have a specific niche like that or

Kelly: I have an anti niche, I guess. I don't do launches. I don't like to be all hands on deck for a couple weeks a year. We are usually working with businesses that have ongoing business. So they they are selling advertising, they are marketers, whatever. They have invoices coming in and then we are handling the accounts receivable or the operations of that kind of stuff. But I don't launch. I don't know. I don't want to I don't like sitting in there figuring out links at 2:00 a.m. and that's been my thing. And at first everyone thought, oh, well, it's online business. Everyone launches, but they don't. There's tons and tons of businesses that just sell things every day. And that's where I like to be.

Teresa: So at Reynold's OBM what are you managing, the business?

Kelly: Yeah. So a lot of times it is just keeping up like the operations of it, maybe managing their team to do whatever they're doing, making sure that everyone gets invoiced, making sure that processes are starting to come into play. All of that kind of back end of the business that most people aren't paying attention to. Like, let's see if we can make things run faster. Can we implement slack to make everyone be able to chat easier, that kind of stuff.

Teresa: We're going to put all your information here in the show, notes where to find you on social media. Absolutely we're going to put the link to your Know Your Numbers documents. Tell everybody real quick again what those are going to do for them, because I think it's a steal. You know, I've been on you, you need to raise the price on that.

Bob Burg has his law of value, right? It's you give so much more value than you accept in payment.

Kelly: I wanted to make these helpful because I think my biggest fear is that people think, oh, this is scary and then I'm not going to use it. So I wanted to make it very useful. There is instructions on exactly how it all works. So there's cash projections for the year so that you can kind of say, OK, I think I'm going to make this much money. I think I have these kind of things coming in. I think these are what I'm going to have to pay out for the year. And what is it? Where does that get me? And then you can kind of play with those numbers to see how it all works. And if you can pay your bills, which is handy.

And then there is a goal tracker sheet which I live and die by. I use it every day in my business. I set goals in there, breaks it all out for the year, and then I track how much I bring in every day and how close I get to that monthly goal. I can tell you right today how far or close I am and how much I have to make per day to get to that goal.

Teresa: That's so powerful. That's an accountability thing.

Kelly: Yeah, yeah. Because if I say I want to make five grand and then I just at the end hope that I did, that doesn't help you. But if you're in there and you say, OK, well, I'm at two grand now, I got three to go, how am I going to get it done? You can get that goal accomplished so much easier when you've a plan there and when you know how far away you are. So that's a huge, huge thing for me.

It's my favorite thing. I think it's the thing that people think, oh, her and her goals. But that is the thing that got me consistently to doubling my monthly revenue, hands down. And then the the third thing is a business decision tool, which is figure out your expenses, how much you're going to save in taxes. And it basically gives you a number at the bottom for what you can take home every month. And then you can make decisions like if I buy this course for a thousand dollars, how does that affect my monthly revenue?

How does that affect all of the things? So you can kind of put different parts of your business in and it'll compute everything for you and give you a nice answer at the end as to how this is going to really affect you and your business. I think it's a way to figure out your numbers now and then plan for the future.

Teresa: I'm so glad you put those together. So we'll put the link to that in there. All right. So to wrap this up, I have a few quick questions I want to ask. We ask all of our guests and the first one, what's your favorite vacation experience or destination?

Kelly:  I think it's every year we go to Cape May. I went there on my honeymoon and my husband and I go in the middle of the winter when there was nobody there. And we basically just eat our way through Cape May for two days.

Teresa: How much fun? That's what my friend Carrie, my crafty friends, she goes to Cape May every year.

Kelly: So that's so that everyone goes in the summer.

Teresa: They eat their way through.

Kelly: It's wonderful. They have such great food there. And if you go in like March, everything's half price and you can get into any restaurant you want. It's fantastic. We just wander around, and eat.

Teresa: So nice. Next up, would you rather time travel or teleport?

Kelly: Teleport. After years of having a four hour day commute, I can't stand being in the car for more than ten minutes now because I'm so aggravated. It's such a waste of time. Even though I love to drive like I would love to teleport. Time travel doesn't, I don't want to know what happens. I don't even look for my Christmas presents. I don't want to know.

Teresa: OK, I like that about the teleporting. I hadn't really thought about that part. And last but not least, what would you like for me to ask a future guest about becoming a profitable CEO?

Kelly: Are they looking at their numbers? Do they have systems in place? Are they really in on this? Do they really want to be successful? So pick a goal and start working toward it.

Teresa: All right. Our first few guests I have no questions for you from anyone. I appreciate you ladies laying the groundwork for that. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Kelly, thanks so much for being here. I know we could talk for another six hours

Kelly: Yes, we could.

Teresa: Thanks for being here. I appreciate you. And the website is

Kelly: ReynoldsOBM.com everything except Twitter I think, @sinkhandlekelly there, but everything else, Reynolds OBM is where you can find us.

Teresa: Speaking of Sink Handle, tell everyone where they can find your podcast.

Kelly: Everything is on ReynoldsOBM, just go to the podcast page and you'll find us there. And we're on all the things, the iTunes and Spotify and everything. Sink Handle podcast.

Teresa: All right. Well, I look forward to having you back. I know we have much, much more to discuss. Thanks again. You have an incredible day and we'll chat soon.

Kelly: Thank you so much. It's been a great time. I'll talk to you later.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Becoming a Profitable CEO. I'll be back next week but in the meantime, let's continue the conversation. Head on over to our Facebook Group at ThePurposefulCEO.com/Facebook and share your take on today's episode.